


The Inspector and the Thief

by hopeless_eccentric



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Canon Non-Binary Character, Domestic Bliss, Duelling, Inspector Juno Steel, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Nureyev has a fucking CLOAK you gotta read it for that, Other, Rivals to Lovers, Thief Peter Nureyev, canon-typical lack of homophobia, kinda the javert-valjean dynamic but they kiss, like pistols at dawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26520490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: Peter Ransom walked away unscathed again, and once more, the public began to talk. That’s why, perhaps, Inspector Juno Steel penned an open letter to the newspaper and asked that if Peter Ransom were truly the gentleman he claimed to be, he would meet him on a hill nearby with a pair of pistols and a doctor. Ransom pinned his affirmation to Juno’s door with a knife and signed it with a heart.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 14
Kudos: 94





	The Inspector and the Thief

**Author's Note:**

> this fic made me gay. not even gonna lie
> 
> Content warnings for gun violence, mention of minor injury, smoking mention, implied police corruption

For the sake of his honor, Inspector Juno Steel stood back to back with one Peter Ransom, pistol in hand. 

Peter Ransom kept his theatrical flair wrapped around him like an expensive fur coat. He always committed his crimes with a blatant and signature flourish, before disappearing like some wafting perfume that shatters one with nostalgia, then leaves them to pick up the pieces in the middle of a crowded, smoky street. Any evidence condemning him also had a vile habit of disappearing when he did, as if he had swept his velvet cape over the scenes of art heists and diamond capers and simply vanished it all with a wink. 

He was the kind of man who wore criminality on sleeves so expensive looking that even the Queen might balk at the dark purple hue of his jacket and the roses hand embroidered upon his fitted waistcoat. However, he never seemed to be accused of that criminality, even if danger dripped from his knife-sharp teeth. 

As such, he found himself matched against the wits of one Inspector Juno Steel, the cat unlucky enough to be tasked with catching this particular mouse. Rumor said he was jaded. Rumor said he was tired. Hell, rumor even said that Inspector Juno Steel kept up a few too many letters of correspondence with Peter Ransom when a particularly lurid heist had tempted the thief away from his usual prowling ground of London. 

Rumor could say what it wanted. The fact of the matter was that Juno Steel had a stubborn streak as wide and deep and dirty as the River Thames. Anyone unlucky enough to know the name Peter Ransom had considered him a dead man as soon as Juno was assigned to his case.

Juno hadn’t minced words when it came to Ransom. If he couldn’t bring him to justice, he’d retire and find something else to spend the rest of his life on. One would have believed it too, with the way his sharp eyes narrowed and his jaw set, his face as shadowed as it was streaked with the fiery dawn. 

Ransom was caught with his hand in somebody else’s bank vault and marched to court by Juno mere weeks ago, though the court couldn’t prove that the vault hadn’t just moved into Ransom’s way. A handful of critics who puffed out smoke like the coughing towers of factories and used to work above Juno said he was going soft. It was a rookie mistake to take Ransom to court without enough evidence, and of course, they would have handled it much differently. However, anyone literate enough to read a headline or two agreed that Ransom was just slippery. 

Some even supposed Juno had finally met a criminal crafty enough to keep up with him. Ransom certainly seemed the part. He wore stolen diamonds like the Queen wore Crown Jewels, though it was safe to say Peter Ransom looked far better in them anyway. Ransom wore the same smile when he was acquitted as when Juno wrapped a careful arm around him and marched him into custody. Onlookers said he looked as if he couldn’t believe he had caught Peter at all, and if he were to loosen that cautious grip, Ransom might fall to the cobbled streets and shatter. 

However, Ransom walked away unscathed again, and once more, the public began to talk. That’s why, perhaps, Juno Steel penned an open letter to the newspaper and asked that if Peter Ransom were truly the gentleman he claimed to be, he would meet him on a hill nearby with a pair of pistols and a doctor. Ransom pinned his affirmation to Juno’s door with a knife and signed it with a heart. 

Ten paces away from the end to that endless chess match in which Ransom had seized him and tied him to his chair by spider silk, Juno took a deep breath. 

“You’re not nervous, are you, my lady?” Ransom teased from behind. Juno couldn’t see his face, but he could hear Peter’s wicked grin curling around his words. 

Juno rolled his eyes. 

“If you want this to end painlessly, you’re gonna want my hand to be steady,” he snorted. 

“I’m shaking in my boots, Juno,” Ransom feigned a sneer. “You do know just how to make a gentleman feel terrified for his life. You must tell me how to do it some time. I feel it would rather help my image.” 

“You’re insufferable.”

Juno shot one last glance over his shoulder at his turned adversary before the duel had time to begin. He was, as always, dressed to kill, with the knife of one of his velvet-cloaked shoulders cutting through the blossoming sunlight. Ransom was dressed for a funeral, but it didn’t look like he planned on it being his own. 

“I’m rather inclined to think you like it,” Ransom mused. 

A slight breeze slithered its way off the dark and dewy grass, swirling up Ransom’s leg and sinking its teeth into the fabric of his cloak. It slapped into the backs of Juno’s knees, and he couldn’t help but jump. 

“Breathe, darling,” Ransom chuckled. 

“If you really wanted me dead, you’d be encouraging me to do the opposite,” Juno hissed. 

“I must admit, detective,” Peter sighed. “I will miss our little games. It’s quite nice to know someone cares about you enough to spend their every waking moment thinking about you.”

Juno’s retort was cut off by the calling of the paces, which he walked through as if in some kind of trance. Though that hilltop meeting was far from his first duel, there was something about that mauve-clad individual on the other end of his pistol that made his heart want to stop all too quickly. He sternly instructed it to keep hammering away until Ransom had taken his first shot. 

Ransom missed, though Juno was sure the pine tree ten feet from him felt the wrath of his bullet. If Peter cared, it wasn’t visible. He merely smiled that lofty smile, like the world was merely humoring him. 

Juno raised his gun when instructed, squinting down the barrel and praying his perpetually steady hand would remain so. He took a deep breath. He aimed. He fired. 

Ransom crumpled to the ground like a house of cards under the careless hand of a child. A hand flew to his cape before Juno could so much as blink, and he drew the fabric tight to him in one great rush that resembled a bat taking flight. The doctor attempted to sprint to his side, but Peter brandished his pistol like a saber and fixed him with a wild-eyed glare. Even bent double, clutching his side, and appearing to beat back pain by force, he looked ferocious. 

“You’re a fool if you don’t think I brought more than one shot,” he snarled, his face like that of a rabid animal. 

The doctor scrambled away, glancing between Juno and Peter’s seconds as if they weren’t already attempting to leave. When he found the hill nearly deserted save for the shooters, he stumbled back away like his life depended on putting as much distance between himself and Peter Ransom as possible. 

“You can’t bring more than one—“ Juno started, as if anyone who might have had the power to argue over the rules of a duel hadn’t already fled. 

“You have a lot of nerve complaining about the regulations,” Ransom growled, continuing to thrash his pistol in the direction of anyone who remained too close. “Are you satisfied, madame?” 

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Juno huffed. 

“Then leave.” 

Juno glanced over his shoulder to ensure the doctor was out of earshot before he sprinted to the man he knew as Peter Nureyev’s side and began to undo the straps on his cloak with suddenly trembling hands. Nureyev didn’t stop him.

“Tell me I didn’t hit you,” he sputtered. “I tried to get as close as I could without it being obvious, but I didn’t see where it went, just that you fell, and—“

Nureyev pulled aside his jacket to reveal a waistcoat devoid of bloodstains. He wore a grin all the while, which Juno lost sight of when he wrapped the cloak around the two of them and pulled the thief into a rib shattering embrace. 

“You forget, my love, that I am quite the actor,” Nureyev chuckled. Juno let out a shuddering sigh against his chest, buried safe and uninjured within the cocoon of his arms and cloak. 

“Shut up,” Juno managed to smile when he raised his head. 

As much as he wanted to stare at Peter Nureyev’s sunlight-anointed face for as long as his eyes could bear it, fear tugged his head over his shoulder in search of the doctor or either one of their seconds. When he returned his gaze, so recently starved of that lovely face, to where it liked to linger best, Nureyev kissed him. 

Juno wasn’t particularly fond of the dewy grass soaking the knees of his trousers, nor did he quite enjoy the way his heart shuddered in his chest like a terrified animal. However, with Peter Nureyev against his lips and their discarded dueling pistols pressed into each other’s backs, Juno supposed there were far worse ways to pass a morning by. Nureyev kissed him like he was worshipping at an altar and cupped his face like he was treasuring something priceless. Juno could only pray he made Peter feel some semblance of the same way. 

“Let’s go home,” Nureyev whispered against his lips when such cruelties as time and need for air saw that they should part. 

Juno answered him by closing that inch-wide gap once more before he managed his way up to his feet. When they both found themselves standing, painted in the sky’s orange and blue impressionism, Nureyev couldn’t seem to help a horribly contagious smile. He tucked his pistol under his arm and offered both of his hands before him. Juno stuffed his weapon back within his coat and received his hands with a squeeze. 

“I’m afraid I can’t travel with you,” Nureyev sighed, as if that in itself had shattered him on some deep, intrinsic level. 

“So long as I see you at the end,” Juno smiled. 

“Farewell until then, my love,” Peter mused. “You take a piece of me with you when you go.” 

Nureyev began to turn away, but Juno squeezed his arm to pause him. 

“I’m staying this time.”

“Beg pardon?” 

“I said I’d retire and find something else to do if I couldn’t catch you. I think this looks like a pretty good last straw,” Juno explained. 

“My darling,” Nureyev breathed. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” 

“I’m turning in my gun. I’ve got something in my life that matters more to me now.” 

“Assisting with my heists?” Peter chuckled. 

“You, idiot,” Juno snorted. “I think I’ve found something I want to spend the rest of my life on.” 

Nureyev’s face split into a grin, sunlight spilling upon and softening the expression like milk poured into the murky depths of a cup of coffee. 

“So are you accepting defeat, detective?” He teased. “I told you when I met you that I’d yet to find an investigator who could best me.” 

“Did you get engaged to all the other ones too?” Juno huffed. 

“Semantics, darling.” 

“Maybe I’ll accept defeat when I get home,” Juno said with an exaggerated sigh. 

Nureyev squeezed his hands twice, as if pulsing out the rhythm of a steady heart. 

“I’ll see you again soon, my love,” he smiled. “And after that, I suppose I’ll see you every day for the rest of my life.” 

The world didn’t need to know that after former Inspector Juno Steel retired, he went home to the man he planned to make his husband and asked him if he’d stolen anything particularly nice on the way home. They didn’t need to know that Nureyev was only free to pick London’s pockets to his heart’s content because Juno had gone to the trouble of botching and undermining every one of his investigations. 

When their rivalry had become far more personal a few years before, Juno privately worried he might slip up and lose Nureyev and his career in a single fell swoop. However, Peter Nureyev proved to be quite the man to play a chess match against, especially if he was passing his opponent notes below the table. They would verbally spar and occasionally fight, if only just to pull punches and show off for onlookers. If one hand were to slip and go too far, they would spend the evening intertwined and making over one another as if they had been stabbed, rather than barely bruised. Even if Juno had a particular distaste for playing any kind of role, the false rival to Peter wasn’t a bad one. 

However, Juno far preferred home cooked meals and easy evenings and a glass of wine over dinner to pretending to hate Peter Nureyev. Each day, the two of them would plan what lines to say and what clothes to wear to minimize damage, while Juno suggested ways for master thief Peter Ransom to disappear into thin air. When they had time, they’d plan the greater adventure to follow their quiet, courthouse wedding and even quieter escape to Scotland. The hours he was thought to be spending guessing Peter Ransom’s next moves were spent instead playing with Peter Nureyev’s hair and whispering sweet nothings into even sweeter curls as they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.

The world knew Juno had dedicated his life to Peter Nureyev. They just happened to have an incomplete picture of it.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact. i thought duels were like. way more legal for brits but apparently you guys stamped all that out like a solid 50 years before the US ended it across the entire country so uh. i had to change some details in this fic to keep the timeline humane. thankfully the general grossness of post-industrial rev london air stays pretty consistent for a while there
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or I'll *insert threat here*
> 
> make sure to check me out on my tumblr @hopeless-eccentric and my twitter @withane22 !!


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